Bob Hunter commentary: Jackets still struggle with elite teams

The gap still is there. No one on the Blue Jackets' side wants to acknowledge it, but the scoreboard does it for them.

Bob Hunter, The Columbus Dispatch

The gap still is there. No one on the Blue Jackets' side wants to acknowledge it, but the scoreboard does it for them.

The Jackets came in on a three-game winning streak, and they played like it. They outplayed the Pittsburgh Penguins for a big chunk of the game, played the kind of high-energy game that requires winning board battles and delivering the kind of thunderous checks that keep the home crowd into every play. But when it counted - and the third period is when it counts - the Penguins blew by them like a Top Fuel dragster.

Pittsburgh's top line of Sidney Crosby, James Neal and Chris Kunitz - and it seems like a waste of space to say that the Jackets don't have a line to match that - scored three goals in less than seven minutes in the third period to break open a 2-2 game on the way to a 5-3 victory. That two of the goals came on the power play shows that the Jackets did their part to help.

"For me, it was about cracking," Blue Jackets coach Todd Richards said. "We cracked first. It was a 2-2 game and even the way we started the third period, I liked it and we had some good chances. But we were the team that broke first. Their goaltender (Jeff Zatkoff) and the way that they played, they weathered the storm in the second period and they got through it.

"To me, that's a team that again record-wise is a first-place team and we're battling. We're in a good spot and would like to be in a better spot, but that to me is the difference." Richards said a mouthful, and it was all true. The Penguins are 29-11-1. The Blue Jackets are 17-18-4. The Jackets are coming - yes - but they still are not there. They are capable of outplaying the Penguins for stretches and even winning a game or two, although that hasn't happened so far this season in four games. Against the two best teams in the Eastern Conference - Boston is the other one - the Jackets are 0-7.

It is a revealing statistic. If this young, improving team could somehow have avoided the two most talented teams in the Eastern Conference, they would be 17-11-4. When a hard-working team of young up-and-comers meets a hard-working team with world-class players, the latter usually wins.

Richards said after the morning skate that he sees the Penguins as "a measuring stick" and thinks his team needs to beat one of these "elite teams." The season series against Boston is over and only one game against Pittsburgh remains.

"There is something to be said about getting that result of getting two points and beating them and knowing in the back of your mind that you competed against the best and you found a way to beat the best," Richards said.

That obviously still hasn't happened. They put the Penguins on the power play six times, and Pittsburgh scored on three of them, more proof that the gap between the two teams remains.

There was talk in the Jackets' room about getting closer to the Penguins, an unconscious acknowledgement of that and one that doesn't take into account all of the missing players on both sides. Between the two teams, there are 14 players out because of injuries, and the Penguins arguably have the worst of it - top-six forwards Evgeni Malkin and Pascal Dupuis and defenseman Kris Letang head the Pittsburgh wounded. The Jackets' impact losses are forwards Nathan Horton and Marian Gaborik and goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, although the team's backup goalies have played well in his absence.

What this means is that if everyone came back, the gap wouldn't narrow; if the Jackets are going to move up in class, they're going to have to play smarter and keep improving.

"I thought we played a really good game, a good enough game to win," Jackets forward Nick Foligno said. "Unfortunately, we took penalties and made some mistakes. But for the most part, we outplayed a really good team over there."

For the most part, they are 0-4 against Pittsburgh. Much work remains.

Bob Hunter is a sports columnist for The Dispatch.

bhunter@dispatch.com

@dailyhunter

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